Goosing Your Muse

You’re going to enjoy this one!

Weird Al Yankovic’s latest target: the mighty record biz itself. The lead single from his new album, Straight Outta Lynwood, throws down a tongue-in-cheek dare to his global fan base: “Don’t Download This Song.”

The accompanying online push for the track, available for free download from his home page and from his MySpace http://www.myspace.com/weirdal space, comes with an animated music video that details, in over-blown and outrageous fashion, the dire consequences that can come from illegal downloading.

The satire is on par with anything he’s done before, but the jabs at the “R-I-double-A” and infamous anti-piracy advocates like Metallica’s Lars Ulrich are wonderfully brutal.

Get the tune and watch the video at, inevitably,
http://www.dontdownloadthissong.com.

I thought you might like to see this from Time magazine.

25 Sites We Can’t Live Without.

It’s true: Craig’s List, Amazon, Google, NetFlix, The Onion, Smoking
Gun, Zappo (or on my list, YourMusic.com)…really, there was no life
before the Internet. — contributed by John Gabree.

Enjoy!

Next time you post your child’s artwork on the refrigerator … look closer!
To an educated eye, the genius in brilliant artists is apparent even in those early years…

A Washington, D.C., exhibit and a new book focus on the truly early work of artists like Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee and Winslow Homer: They look at the drawings and paintings these artists created when they were children…[compared with their later work.]

See the article and artwork on NPR’s (Nat’l Public Radio) site,
When We Were Young: Art That’s Not Child’s Play

The exhibit runs through September 10, 2006, at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.,

“… features 30 contemporary children’s drawings alongside childhood drawings by Klee and Picasso juxtaposed with their mature work. By bringing these works together, When We Were Young seeks to re-examine conventional notions of what it means to be artistically gifted and shed new light on the relationship of drawing to creative thinking in children.”

The book is entitled, When We Were Young: New Perspectives on the Art of the Child. The author is Jonathan Fineberg.

PSBC Director, Lauren Adams, just announced this fabulous week-long event is going to happen again … the celebrated Performing Songwriters Boot Camp.

However, this time it will be held at the Teton Teepee Lodge, 470 W. Alta Rd., in Alta, Wyoming … one hour’s drive from Jackson, Wyoming, nestled at the base of the exquisite Grand Tetons Mountains.

The Teton Teepee is a comfortable family-oriented ski lodge with a large fireplace in the center of the lodge, an outdoor hot tub, big screen TV, ping pong, etc. Lodging there for the boot camp is “dormitory style.” (Just imagine you’re back in the bunkhouse again!)

DATES: AUGUST 6 thru 13, 2006.
Sign-up Deadline is SOOOON!

Los Angeles-based songwriting teacher/consultant, John Braheny, (and author of the best-selling book, “The Craft and Business of Songwriting”), will get down into the finer details of building a song from the ground up (including re-writing), and how to benefit most from it, once you’ve got it nailed down tight … plus you’ll have time to do some co-writing too.

Also, from Los Angeles, vocal-coach-extraordinaire, Steven Memel will provide all you’ll need to improve and perfect your voice and performing skills.

And I will be there as well to lead you through some new exercises to stimulate (and help you maintain) your creative process.

A great opportunity to get into the beauty of the Old West…meet some fellow songwriters and spend a week tuning up your skills!

SPECIAL: Lauren Adams will produce a one-song demo of each attendee’s original song at the new state-of-the-art Idaho Film and Television Institute located in Driggs, Idaho, just across the state line from where we’ll be staying.

To sign up: See how to audition (online) with your applications procedure.

Accommodations, excellent meals, and the boot camp are all included in the registration fee.

Contact: Lauren Adams, lauren@laurenadams.com

For details, go to Performing Songwriters Boot Camp.

See our previous (2003) Boot Camp Photos.

ohn Braheny and I are back from the Great Northwest (to Shaw Island, Washington State, and Vancouver, British Columbia, and Hornby Island, British Columbia – Canada) where we participated in three seminar/workshop/retreats for songwriters. Glorious!

As we traveled, we listened to a fantastic book on CD, The World is Flat, by Thomas L. Friedman. It hit the best seller charts right away in 2005 when it was published, but we're just getting around to it…the subtitle is “A brief history of the 21st century.”

If you are interested in how the Internet grew the way it did, and how it is affecting business and culture, worldwide … i.e., why you are now able to market your own CD or DVD on the Web … this is the book for you. An explorer's pleasure-trip, for sure:
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Just a reminder that John Braheny and I will be visiting the Northwest, offering seminars, consultations and critiques, for songwriters, musicians and bands.

(Yep, musicians and bands don't always think of themselves as songwriters…they just get together and jam and “make stuff up.”)

All the info (and more) is on on his web site, but I'll put the bare bones here for your pleasure.

Hope to see you there!

VANCOUVER, BC, CANADA – All Day Seminar
May 13th, 2006 (Saturday)

MARKETING YOUR MUSIC — John Braheny

• How to market your songs or your band
• How to pitch your songs for film and TV projects
• How music libraries — film/TV song placement co.s work.
• How to market your songs and band online
• The best online resources/services
• How to make the best use of Blogs, Webcasts and Podcasts to promote your band and songs.
• Fresh look at the hows and whys of some powerful writing techniques — a prelude
to: Song critiques – Selected at random — lyric sheets required.

Also — For professional feedback on your songs and career strategy,
schedule a one-on-one session on Sunday May 14.
E-mail: john@johnbraheny.com.

Time: 10 a.m.- 5 p.m.
Location: Holiday Inn Express, 2889 East Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC.
(Near the Pacific Nat'l Exhibition – PNE)
Phone hotel for directions: (604) 254-1000

Contact: Event Organizer, Esther Sarlo, in Vancouver.
Email: esther.spokensoftly@telus.net or phone: 604-253-3039.
Early registration: $65 (CAD).

A reminder:

We (John Braheny and I) will be presenting a 3-day “Goosing Your Song Muse” songwriters workshop retreat on beautiful Shaw Island (Washington – off the coast of Seattle), Friday/Saturday/Sunday, May 5-6-7, 2006.

This particular retreat, due to limited facilities, is for 10 women only … and there are still a few openings if you haven’t already registered. Talk to either Sharon Wooton or Maggie Savage … Their contact info is at SongAndWord.com.

The location (in the San Juan islands) is simply stunning, with all the tranquility you can handle, excellent meals prepared straight from their garden, wide open views of the bay as you play their grand piano in the main room, or enjoy their under-the-stars hot tub, plus opportunities to co-write and learn about how to market your songs on the Web with one of the best songwriting teachers in the business (if I say so myself). Also, a bit of time is devoted to creativity exercises too.
Beginners welcome…

This is our third time there and we hope you can join us!

I know. It doesn’t sound possible…but this article, How to Write a Novel in 100 Days (or less), by John Coyne, really maps it out for you, day by day.

For some of you, (dare I say, some of us) this is exactly what we’ve been looking for…

Credit to: del.icio.us/tag/creativity.

So many of us are not linear thinkers, you know, following step 1, step 2, step 3, etc. We tend to get an abstract picture in our minds that, somehow, makes sense only to us. When it comes to producing the product (i.e., song, book, story), we still have to put it into some kind of pattern for it to communicate to the masses.

To illustrate a completely different way to approach a novel-writing project, here's an article, (found at del.icio.us), by award-winning novelist, fiction teacher and physicist, Randy Ingermanson, The Snowflake Method for Writing a Novel.

The visual concept of building a snowflake shows me how each section of a novel can be 'built' to handle plots twists and yet hang on to an overall pattern.

Several people have divulged their writing processes to me … and one of them that was not at all like a snowflake, was from a woman who writes Harlequin-style love novelettes. Very formula. So much so, that she showed me huge drawn grids on the 4 walls that surround her desk, reading in a circle around the room. The giant square grids denote time-lines or plot shifts, to be filled in, just like a puzzle. In other words, if a certain sub-climax had not been entered into square 3, then the “timing” in her story would be “off.” Hey, whatever works …

More about novel-writing next time…

Here's another wiki (website resource we can all contribute to) that took me off my trail just long enough to get refreshed:

Simply put, all one needs to grow his/her brain is to do unique, random, different, and ridiculous things as often as possible. One hour of increased brain activity via thinking a lot or experiencing new stimuli can make you smarter, more energetic, more creative, and more sociable. Here are some of the endless numbers of activities that can stimulate your brain. The one key ingredient is to have an open mind. – How to Exercise an Open Mind

You'll see a list of tips and suggestions, with links.

One of my favorites is #4.
It reminds me of a writing exercise (also great for actors), that asks you to memorize as many details in a given location as you can (for example, while you're waiting at the bank or post office), including colors, lighting, sounds, shapes, textures, etc., not just naming “chair,” “table,” “door,” which are too simple and nondescript.

This helps to build variety in your sensory memory which you'll use each time you need to build a character or event. Just like painters who add and combine more colors on their palette, you'll be adding more choices.

Enjoy!